Scepter of Flint

by N. L. Holmes

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Hani reminded him. Two years before, he’d discovered that the priests of Amen-Ra were systematically trying to undermine the regime of Nefer-khepru-ra—and they’d made use of Mitannian mercenaries.

  The men sat staring at one another in silence. Baket-iset looked thoughtful. “Is Uncle Amen-em-hut working with them, Papa?”

  “He is, my love.”

  The silence stretched on. The men’s busy thoughts were a tangible presence in the room, a vulture circling over their heads.

  “So, let me tell you what we found out,” Mery-ra said at last. “Pa-aten-em-heb told us that the arrow was likely to be a cavalry weapon for short-range assured kills. He said that he could probably tell us which unit by looking at the feathers.”

  “Is Ay behind this, then?” Hani asked. In the abstract, that wouldn’t surprise him. But it didn’t fit with the theory of the Crocodiles being involved.

  Mery-ra shrugged. “We may know more when Pa-aten-em-heb tells us what he finds.”

  Maya said somberly, “If Lord Ay’s part of this, we’ll never be able to prosecute the case. The king will shut it right down. Ay’s the king’s father-in-law—and uncle.”

  “Or it could just be some renegade soldier or mercenary.” Hani earnestly hoped that was the case.

  “What’s next, Lord Hani?” Maya asked.

  “I suppose that, while we wait to hear from Pa-aten-em-heb, we should interview Ankh-reshet and see what he might have observed about the murder. He was the one who found Djau’s body. Oh!” Hani cried suddenly, slapping his forehead. “I keep forgetting to return Keliya’s clothes and those of his attachés. Let me run those down to Mane’s house right now.”

  “As you will, son.” Mery-ra shrugged. “As for me, I’ve been tramping around the city all morning. I think I’ll stay home and work on my Book.”

  “Do you need me, Lord Hani?” asked Maya eagerly.

  Hani smiled. The young man was always ready for an adventure to add to his growing Tales. “I think I won’t need anybody to help me. I’ll load the baskets onto the donkey. But thank you for offering.” He turned to Baket-iset. “Tell Mama to go ahead and serve lunch, my swan. I’ll be back shortly and will get something on my own.”

  He called Iuty, the young gardener, and told him to put the packsaddle on the donkey. Then Hani went out to the kitchen court, where he’d stored the baskets and chests of the Mitannians. Iuty hoicked one into his arms and started out for the stable yard. Hani stooped to pick up a lidded basket woven of reeds, but it was heavier than he expected, and he felt it sliding out of his grip. He gave a yelp as it fell awkwardly to the ground and opened up, spilling its contents.

  “Ammit take it,” he muttered crossly and began to collect the heavy woolen tunics and bits of linen smallclothes. Suddenly he stopped, sucking in his breath. Lying on the ground was a beautiful tunic the color of turquoise. His hair rose on his neck.

  Hani stuffed the clothing back into the chest, heart pounding. He carried it in his arms—carefully this time—and handed it to Iuty to balance on the packsaddle with the other bundles. I’ve got to talk to Keliya about this.

  Hani had intended to take the litter, but he decided he wanted to make better time. “Iuty, you know where Lord Keliya lives. I’m going ahead and will tell him you’re on your way.” He charged out of the gate and headed down the packed-earth lane. The neighborhood was emptied out anyway due to the moving of the capital, but at this siesta hour, it was a city of ghosts.

  Under a warming sun, he strode along at a brisk pace. He would outdistance the lazy donkey in no time. His thoughts were a tangle, as chaotic as a stork’s nest. This is bad. Keliya may find himself implicated. Mahu will torture Pirissi and Tulubri to make them confess, and who knows what they’ll say to defend themselves.

  The culprit had to be Tulubri.

  With a mounting sense of dread, Hani reached Mane’s house and sought entry. Keliya greeted him shortly, his face more lugubrious than usual. Hani was aware of his own heartbeat pounding in his throat.

  “Bad news, Hani, my friend,” Keliya said gravely. “I’ve received a copy of a letter Tushratta has sent to Nefer-khepru-ra, and he’s outraged. He demands the two young emissaries be released—”

  “Well, of course.” Hani could understand such a reaction only too well. It was exactly what he’d predicted.

  “He said that as long as your king holds Pirissi and Tulubri, he’s keeping Mane hostage in Wasshukanni.”

  Hani’s stomach leaped into his mouth as if he had been pushed off a cliff. “Oh no! Poor Mane! I hope that animal Mahu doesn’t do anything to them, or Tushratta will take it out on Mane, and he’s innocent of any wrongdoing.” Keliya nodded, long faced. They stared at one another for a moment, then Hani added in a lower voice, “I think that, in fact, they may be guilty, my friend. I’m bringing your baggage back—it should be here any minute—and when I was loading it, someone’s chest fell open. In it was a turquoise-colored tunic like the one several people have described the ringleader as wearing.”

  Keliya faced him with a pained expression on his face. “That’s not conclusive evidence, Hani.”

  “Of course not,” Hani assured him. “But I’d very much like to see Tulubri’s upper lip. Would he submit to a shave, do you think?”

  “With his life on the line? I should imagine so. The question is, will Mahu let you see him—and with a razor in your hand?”

  “I’ll see if Ptah-mes can’t get me a pass from Aper-el. Surely that dog turd of a police chief doesn’t outrank the vizier,” Hani said somberly.

  Keliya took his hands and shook them. “Thank you for this, my friend. We have to show that he’s innocent.”

  “If he’s innocent.”

  The Mitannian nodded—reluctantly, it seemed to Hani.

  He took his leave and set off once more for home. His thoughts were troubled. They kept doubling back to that passage from the Book of Going Forth by Day that had haunted him lately, and all at once, the cryptic words began to make sense. Here I am at the pool of Two Truths, he thought with a kind of wonder. Truth One: if I don’t pursue this, I may be letting a guilty man go free. Truth Two: if I help condemn Tulubri, I’m dooming my friend.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE NEXT MORNING, HANI left for Akhet-aten with Maya.

  “I’m sorry to have to take you into the teeth of the plague, my friend, but I need to talk to Ptah-mes,” Hani said. “I have to get permission to see the two attachés.” He told his secretary about Tushratta keeping Mane hostage. “Even if Tulubri’s guilty, we need to argue his immunity. Let our king send him home, but he mustn’t be put to death.”

  Maya expelled a low whistle. “This has gotten sticky.”

  When they reached the capital five days later, Hani was gloomier than ever. The painful test that lay before him crushed him down like a sack of stones on his back. “We’re facing the Weighing of the Heart every day,” he murmured, apropos of nothing, as they marched down the gangplank.

  “How so, my lord?” asked Maya.

  “The choices we’re constantly being forced to make—it’s like all the interrogations and confrontations of the soul in judgment. I suspect we ought to take them more seriously.”

  Maya eyed him askance, as if wondering what had provoked such a state of mind. They strode up the processional street toward the Hall of Royal Correspondence in silence.

  Hani had to wait awhile in the reception room while his superior dealt with other business. As he sat cross-legged on the floor, his thoughts kept circling that passage about the pool of Two Truths and the scepter of flint from the Book. There had to be a clue in there somewhere.

  At last, the sour-faced guardian of the waiting room gestured Hani into Ptah-mes’s office. “He’ll see you, my lord,” he said loftily.

  Hani left Maya waiting and made his way to Ptah-mes’s door, which was ajar. He scratched at it and entered, only to find the vizier of the Northern Kingdom sitting in Pta
h-mes’s chair. Hani’s superior had taken a humble seat on a stool.

  “My lord Aper-el,” Hani cried in surprise, folding into a court bow.

  “It is I indeed,” said the vizier with a slight twitch of a smile. “I decided to stay and hear whatever you may have to report about your investigation, Hani.”

  “Here’s where we stand, my lord.” Hani launched into a summary of the evidence given him by the workmen, the intervention of Mahu, and his suspicions about Kiya’s chamberlain. Then he added, “Just before I left to come here, however, I found in the baggage of Keliya’s adjutants a distinctive tunic that matched the description everyone gave of the mysterious foreigner’s dress.” He saw Ptah-mes’s dark eyes widen in surprise. “I came to ask for permission to interrogate the men, who are now Mahu’s prisoners. I thought if we shaved Tulubri’s mustachioed lip, we’d find out for certain whether he could be implicated.”

  “You’re aware, I suppose that the Mitannians are holding hostage our ambassador in Wasshukanni?” said Aper-el. His pale, sharp face was grave.

  “I am, my lord,” Hani said regretfully. “Lord Mane is an old friend of mine. But we have to pursue ma’at in this case.”

  Aper-el and Ptah-mes exchanged glances. The vizier said, “The Great Jubilee of the Aten will be concluding soon—in a few days, in fact. I assume you will be present for the homage of the nations?”

  “I will, my lord.” Hani had certainly intended to attend, if only to observe the gifts brought by vassals and allies, but with the plague afoot in Akhet-aten, he’d pretty well changed his mind. Now that his superiors expected him to be there, he seemed to have changed it back.

  “Mahu and his men will all be busy with controlling the crowds and making sure no one’s house is robbed while they’re watching the spectacle. That might be a good time to visit the medjay’s jail,” Ptah-mes suggested.

  Aper-el nodded. “Good idea. I’ll give you a letter with my seal on it, Hani. Anyone but Mahu will honor it.”

  “Permit me to ask,” Hani began hesitantly. “How much is the king—life, prosperity, and health to him—aware of all this? Is he supporting our investigation? Because Mahu keeps invoking some direct order from Our Sun God to push me aside. I don’t think the army would have surrendered their prisoners to him without instructions from on high—especially after I promised your protection for them.”

  Ptah-mes lowered his eyes, expressionless, and Aper-el looked sour, his nostrils pinched. “I suspect they’re both true. He supports us, and he has sent in Mahu.”

  How can that be? Hani asked himself in irritation. Here, yet again, are two truths that cannot coexist.

  Ptah-mes’s glance flickered to Hani, but he showed no emotion. Aper-el rose, and Ptah-mes followed suit. Aper-el was dressed in his long kilt of office, knotted under the armpits, his neck laden with shebyu collars of honor. His upper arms were clasped by priceless gold cuffs; earrings glittered at the edge of his expensive wig. Everything about him spoke of power. Yet someone had more power still.

  Aper-el turned and swept off to the inner office, while Hani and Ptah-mes dropped into a bow. “We’ll speak this evening,” Ptah-mes murmured to Hani, and he followed the vizier.

  ⸎

  Maya had entertained himself during his wait by mentally polishing the story he planned to tell about his foray into the City of the Dead. A hostile ghost might spice things up some, he thought, although he didn’t want to scare the children. Perhaps a ghost who begged for justice—yes, the ba of one of the victims of tomb robbery. That would set the whole case in a moral perspective, and it was no doubt true on a spiritual level. And his hero, the Traveler—himself—would do battle with the guilty workmen, who wouldn’t go quietly into the hands of the law. His stance would be implacable—for ma’at and against wrongdoers—even though the men crawled to his feet and begged him to be merciful toward a father of eleven. He realized he was conflating Lord Hani’s recounting of the arrest with his own fact-finding mission, but his mother and aunts—not to mention the children—were more interested in entertainment than in historical accuracy.

  Maya was so enthusiastically imagining the events, and even working out some wording here and there, that he was almost sorry when Lord Hani emerged from the office, his face set, his eyebrows drawn down. Maya climbed to his feet.

  Hani waved a sealed packet of folded papyrus at Maya. “We have Aper-el’s permission to go to the police office while Mahu himself is surveilling the closing of the Great Jubilee. If they’re interested in keeping the law, they’ll let us in.”

  “That’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?” Maya said in surprise. “The Jubilee is almost over.”

  “This case is dragging me down, Maya. I just hope we can clear Tulubri, because otherwise, Mane will suffer.”

  “Don’t you think the evidence is stronger against that chamberlain of Lady Kiya?” Maya asked. “Anybody can borrow or steal a tunic, but a man’s face is what it is.”

  “I just keep remembering how terrified Bebi-ankh became the night the Mitannians were in the house.”

  Maya absorbed this. The evidence was by no means univocal. They would have to do more investigating.

  That evening, he and Lord Hani were still hashing over the facts of the case when Ptah-mes arrived at his house. He joined them in the garden, where they were sitting under the naked arbor, and sank wearily into his chair. “You gentlemen have been busy,” he said with a thin smile. “What’s next?”

  “We’ll need to shave Tulubri. And we still haven’t solved the mystery of Djau’s murder. A young officer of our acquaintance is looking into the weapon. He thinks it’s a cavalry arrow and believes he can identify the unit from which it came.”

  “If it was some renegade soldier our foreigner hired, that might not tell us much,” Ptah-mes said. “But if the order came from higher up the official military hierarchy, we might as well stop investigating right now, because we know where that leads.”

  He clapped his hands, and a servant girl appeared, bowing. “Bring us a ewer of chilled wine and three cups,” Ptah-mes said in a brusque voice.

  That’s why people think he’s haughty and cold, Maya told himself.

  Ptah-mes heaved a sigh and brushed his unwrinkled kilt mechanically. His eyes were fixed on some distant point, which gave him a hollow look. The wine arrived, and Ptah-mes, shaking off his gloom, poured each of them a cupful. Maya could feel his mouth watering. He remembered the exquisite wine of Kebni Ptah-mes had served them once before.

  The commissioner handed out the cups and lifted his in a toast. “To the reestablishment of ma’at.”

  Whatever those cryptic words might imply, Maya and Hani seconded the wish enthusiastically. For once, they could be honest with their toast. So many of them were for the king.

  “Apeny has been feeling a little under the weather,” Ptah-mes said after they’d swallowed their wine. “I’ll probably go back to Waset for a while, if you should need me. You can report on the shaving of Tulubri when you get home.”

  “My best wishes for her speedy recovery,” Hani said graciously. But Maya was sure every man there was asking himself, Is it the plague?

  ⸎

  Hani stood among the diplomats of the foreign service, not far from the royal kiosk set up on the shore. Before them stretched the main street of Akhet-aten, swept and sprinkled. The foreign emissaries bringing gifts from their homelands would approach up the road, while the king received them from his shaded and flowery viewing stand. Around him stood his family and the plume-holding Fan Bearers. Hani watched the king’s children more closely than the foreign bringers of tribute. The little Haru in the nest, the crown prince, was held in the arms of his eldest sister Meryet-aten, a pretty girl who had already surrendered her Haru lock for the clusters of braids of a marriageable maiden. The decorative lock that she wore over them marked her as the king’s child—which she would ever be, no matter her age. At the sight of her, Hani remembered what Neferet had said about the my
sterious events surrounding the birth of Prince Tut-ankh-aten and how the princess had witnessed at least half of the exchange of babies. What must an eleven-year-old girl have thought? What must she think now of the little brother who, to her knowledge, is nothing of the sort?

  As soon as the procession of foreigners and vassals was well underway, drawing every eye, and the royal musicians filled the air with the wail of pipes and the clash of drums and cymbals, Hani edged inconspicuously out of the crowd. He’d left Maya in the audience, thinking that if anyone happened to observe his passage, the presence of a dwarf might stick in their mind more than yet another white-clad bureaucrat.

  At intervals along the street, raised guard platforms stood, from the height of which the medjay scanned the crowds. Hani quitted the area of surveillance as quickly as he could and strode purposefully through the back alleys east of the processional way. No one was around; the presentation of exotic gifts had drawn them as relentlessly as gaudy flowers drew bees. Hani’s footsteps clopped softly on the unpaved streets, the only sound except for cicadas, which had already begun their summer concert. Ahead of him stood the three-story tower that served as the headquarters of the city’s police.

  He entered with a firm step, even a bit of swagger, and announced himself to the scribe on duty in the reception room. “Hani son of Mery-ra, here by the vizier of the Lower Kingdom’s orders, to interrogate the Mitannian prisoners.”

  He flashed his sealed papyrus at the man, who rose from the floor and bowed his way out, murmuring, “One minute, my lord.”

  A moment later, a youthful medjay with bronze-hard muscles approached Hani. “How can I help you, my lord? I’m afraid our chief is overseeing the security of the ceremony today, but I’ll do what I can for you.”

  “I need to meet with the Mitannian prisoners. Their king is not happy with the way they were apprehended, and the Good God Nefer-khepru-ra wants me to interrogate them.” Hani forced his voice to sound full of authority.

  “Please follow me.” The policeman took them to a heavy door reinforced with bronze bands and pushed up the external bar. Over his shoulder, Hani saw the two Mitannians jump to their feet nervously.